


Something Like Fate

by furyofthetimelords



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Fluff, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 22:25:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9037235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furyofthetimelords/pseuds/furyofthetimelords
Summary: Everyone has a soulmark - a guide to help lead them to their perfect other half. Too bad Clary has no idea what hers means, until she meets someone right out of her dreams.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkAliceLilith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAliceLilith/gifts).



It was said that everyone in the world had a soulmate - that every person out there has their perfect match, and between you would exist a love that would go unmatched by anything else in the world. 

Some would say you’re incomplete without this person - that by finding them, you’ll become more than you ever would alone. Others reject this notion, believing instead it’s just love or some strange quirk of biology, but whatever a person’s belief, there’s no denying it’s a powerful thing. 

And all you had to do was solve the puzzle that was soulmarks, though it was not often an easy task. Just because you had a soulmate doesn’t mean they’re going to stand around waiting for you to stumble across them. 

For some people, it’s almost that easy - if you were lucky, your soulmark was a name or even a place, making the process of elimination that much easier when you finally found something that could match.

It wasn’t like that for Clary. Her soulmark wasn’t a name, place or even any kind of word. “At least it’s original,” her best friend Simon had always said, but that was easy for him to say. He had a name, specifically that of a street - Dutton Street was printed in neat capital letters on his arm. 

Her mark looked like some sort of ancient symbol, like something you’d find carved into a long-abandoned temple, with its strange curved design. Clary had tried to find out if it meant something, but she’d never been able to find anything, in any language or culture that matched. 

She tried not to be frustrated with it, trying to assure herself it’d work out when she needed to, but she couldn’t help feeling a little let down, especially since it seemed to be the most exciting thing about her life. Everything else was so painfully ordinary - she was just another hopeful arts student in New York city, like thousands of other people. 

It didn’t help that she’d started dreaming about living a more exciting life. Every night she fell asleep, she’d dream about being someone else - not just another person, but some kind of demon-hunting warrior defending humans from the dangers of the darkness. But sometimes it felt like this wasn’t just some other life, that in this dream she was a whole different person. 

She wasn’t sure how to explain them to anyone - even Simon, who she trusted more than anything. This was her secret, and unless she found something that explained them, they’d stay that way.

/

Isabelle tried not to be bitter about the fact her soulmark was a rune. Of course her mark would be something so ordinary in her world that she sometimes lost in amongst the other runes she’d drawn on her body. At least those ones were useful. 

Her mother often said it was a lucky thing - that it meant her soulmate had to be a powerful shadowhunter but Isabelle privately thought that was bullshit. No matter what the stories said about shadowhunter soulmates with rune marks being the ultimate parabatai, it all felt like some clever little story to placate those with boring rune marks. 

She often wished she had something special as her mark, a hint or clue that wasn’t so completely ordinary in her life. But that just wasn’t how it worked - wanting something didn’t mean it was magically going to happen.

/

Like most nights when she couldn’t sleep, Clary wandered the city. She knew it was probably a bad idea, and at twenty one she was all too aware of the things that could go wrong. But tonight she’d managed to wake up at the perfect time between when the night life ended and just before the morning began. Everything was still dark, but getting lighter by the minute, but it was still quite and peaceful.

_ I guess this is what they call the witching hour _ , Clary thought. There was something magical about finding a quiet moment in a city that supposedly never slept, like she’d found something that wasn’t quite supposed to exist. 

There was nobody else out on the streets as far as she could see, so when any kind of person appeared on the horizon Clary paid attention. Except the person she saw nearly made her stop cold. 

For a moment, she thought she was still asleep - the figure she saw looked like it was lifted right out of her dreams, right down to the strange marks on her arms and body. It was a dark haired woman with a silvery 

“Wait - stop, please,” Clary called out after the girl, who was already disappearing down an alleyway. Without thinking, Clary ran after her. 

But she didn’t get too far before she found herself being pressed up against the brick wall of the alley.

“Who are you?” the woman asked in accented English. 

“I - just - your tattoos,” Clary said. “They’re like my soulmark.”

The woman frowned. “What?” she asked and stepped away from Clary. “Show me.”

Clary rolled up her sleeve. “This,” she says, holding her arm out to the girl. 

“That - you’re a mundane,” the girl said, her dark eyes regarding Clary warily. 

“I - what?” Clary replies, caught totally off-guard by the woman’s phrasing. 

“Mundane - a human. You’re ordinary, but you have the sight?” the woman asked. 

“I - yes?” Clary said. “I’m not blind.”

“That’s not what I meant. You - you see all of this,” the woman said and gestured around. “The glamours don’t work on you.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” Clary said. “I just wanted to ask you if you could tell me what my soulmark meant. You have tattoos just like it.”

“They’re not tattoos. They’re runes,” the woman explained. “And you shouldn’t be able to see me.”

“Are you part of some cult?” Clary asked, suddenly wondering if she’d stumbled into something she shouldn’t have. 

“Of course not,” the woman said sharply. “I’m loyal only to the Clave.”

Clary wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Okay sure. But what are those runes? And why shouldn’t I -” she asked, but broke off when the woman froze in place. 

“Stay exactly where you are,” the woman said, and Clary watched on as the woman moved carefully past Clary and towards something behind her. There was unpleasant growl that made Clary’s blood run cold. 

She turned her head slightly, trying to get a better look at whatever it was that made the woman react so badly and nearly fell over when she saw what it was. 

It was a monster. Exactly like the ones from her dream - it looked like some sort of dog, but like it’d been put together wrong. 

And the woman was standing in front of it, a silver whip uncoiling from her wrist. 

_ It’s just like my dream _ , Clary thought as she watched the woman strike. She threw out the whip in one fluid motion, hitting the monster right in the face with a sharp  _ crack _ . The monster roared in pain, and Clary watched as its skin sizzled where the metal made contact.

She wanted to do something to help, but the woman seemed to know exactly what to do - she moved faster than what should’ve been possible, moving out of the way exactly when the monster tried to strike. 

The fight was over almost as soon it began - the monster tried to attack once again but Isabelle was faster and pulled out a glowing knife from a pocket Clary didn’t even know she had and drove it right into the monster’s face. 

It exploded in a spray of golden dust, almost like sparks. The smell of sulfur lingered in the air. 

“What - what was that,” Clary asked, breathing heavily. 

“A demon,” the woman replied.

“That - that’s impossible,” Clary said, shaking her head. “I - they’re just dreams.”

“Dreams?” the woman said curiously. “You’ve seen one before?”

“I - only when I’m asleep. And your whip - I’ve seen that before too,” Clary said, shaking her head. “It’s just a dream.”

“Maybe it’s something else,” the woman said. “Show me your mark again.”

Clary held it out to her. The woman looked over it, eyes fixed on the design and held up her own arm beside Clary’s, where another symbol identical to it was. Clary almost thought it was just another ‘rune’ on the woman’s arm, but the edges were different - this one didn’t look like it’d been burned into her skin, but more like a birthmark.

“You - you’re,” Clary said. “This isn’t real.”

“I think it is,” the woman said. “I thought you’d be a shadowhunter.”

“A what?” Clary said, caught off guard. 

“A shadowhunter. We hunt demons,” the woman said. “My power comes from the angel, and it’s our mission to protect people.”

“I - this. You’re serious?” Clary said. “Like, really?”

“Of course,” the woman replied. “You know what you saw.”

“It’s crazy,” Clary said. “I mean, this stuff? It just doesn’t happen.”

“You already believe in magic,” the woman said. “You soulmark.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Isabelle. And yours is?”

“Clary,” she replied. 

“Well, nice to meet you Clary,” Isabelle said, and Clary felt a strange sense of  _ rightness  _ at hearing Isabelle say her name. 

“So, what now?” Clary asked. 

“Well,” Isabelle said, “I was going to ask you to come to the institute with me, but why not take a walk instead. The long way, I think.”

Clary blushed at the way Isabelle said  _ the long way _ . “Okay, sure. I mean, so long as you're not trying to lure me to my death.”

Isabelle laughed. “Of course not. I protect people like you.”

“Well lead the way then,”

/

*So, your dreams, tell me about them,” Isabelle asked as she walked with Clary. She could almost hardly believe it. A mundane was her soulmate? It didn't seem like it should be possible, but her soulmark didn't lie. She knew it had to be Clary. 

And of course there were Clary's dreams. She'd heard about people who dreamed about their soulmate, but she'd never met anyone who had. 

“Well, I dreamt about fighting a lot. But like that monster you fought earlier -”

“Demon,” Isabelle corrected.

Clary’s eyes widened. “Oh,” she said. “Well, yeah that demon - I've dreamt about it before. Not like that moment - but I think I was some other time. There was one at a club the other day.”

Isabelle nodded. She'd been to Pandemonium earlier that week. “Well, that much happened.”

“Whoa. This is just,” Clary broke off and shook her head. “Sorry, I just didn't think this would ever happen.”

“My parents always said soulmates eventually meet. I never really believed them until now.”

Clary blushed. Isabelle privately thought it was an attractive look. Any other day, and she might have already been hitting on Clary, but she held back tonight. The mystery of Clary's mark and dreams was big. And it wasn't like she already knew if Clary was even into women. 

Sure, the shadowhunter world had become far more tolerant these days, but she knew mundanes weren't always good either. 

And Clary was so clearly not a shadowhunter, although part of Isabelle wished she was. The rune mark on Clary should've been impossible - but it was there all the same. Maybe she'd find answers at the institute, but that was maybe left for another time. The urgency for that felt dulled in comparison to talking with Clary.

“You know,” Clary said and interrupted Isabelle's thoughts. “We should hang out sometime. Properly.”

“Hang out?” Isabelle asked a little skeptically. “I don't know that one.”

“Like, meetup sometime when you're not demon hunting, y’know?”

“Like a date?” Isabelle asked, trying not to feel too hopeful, but surely if they were soulmates maybe Clary was feeling the same pull of attraction.

Clary smiled. “If you want. I mean, no pressure and all but I don't think we should just stop here. I want to know you.”

“I wanna to know you too. All of you,” Isabelle said a little more honestly than she'd meant to.

“Well, I'm glad we're on the same page,” Clary said. “Can I kiss you?”

Isabelle stepped closer to Clary. “Of course,” she said softly and leant in, meaning for the kiss to be a short, quick thing. But as soon as their lips touched Isabelle felt a rush of pure  _ rightness  _ and the kiss got deeper. 

She’d kissed people before - but none of them.had ever felt this good. A soulmate’s touch was supposed to be grounding, like a perfect feather for your soul. She hadn't understood until now, just how right it was. No wonder she'd rarely ever seen new soulmates (or even some older ones) not touching in some way when they were together. 

Clary was the first to pull back, but Isabelle could tell there was some reluctance in that. Although they were still touching - Isabelle's hands were resting on Clary's hips and Clary had a hand on Isabelle's shoulder. “Oh, wow,” she said, eyes wide. Isabelle was pretty sure her own expression matched Clary's.

“That was good,” Isabelle said and gave Clary another quick kiss. “A good thing we took the long way around.”

Clary smiled. “Yeah, me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this so thanks to tmifemslash on Tumblr for organising this + dark-alice-lilith for the prompt. Hope you've enjoyed it.


End file.
